


Mortal Chains (Tie Me to You)

by A_Tired_Writer



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Character Study, Emotions, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Parentlock (but barely), Romance, god i use that word SO loosely, it's sorta implied, this is me fucking around I promise, this is more of a
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:27:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25439185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Tired_Writer/pseuds/A_Tired_Writer
Summary: John Watson had always had a strange relationship with his body.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 4
Kudos: 39





	Mortal Chains (Tie Me to You)

John Watson had always had a strange relationship with his body.

As a doctor, he'd learned the conduits and streets through which blood and electricity travelled to form what people called "motor function" or "the circulatory system." Putting names to it didn't help much. In fact, he'd venture so far as to say naming these things made it worse; it took away romance from a world that had so little to give already. Now he was nothing more than a house with beams made of ivory and wallpaper with the pattern of his unmarked skin. There was a default, a mould, into which everyone was born, and individuality came later—if you were so lucky to find it.

And so the mystery of the human body was the first thing to be taken from John Watson.

Next he would lose the claim to his own.

If asked now why he’d joined the Army, the answer would be as follows:

_They know how to work you, don’t they? Make it all seem glorious and patriotic. “You’re a man of medicine,” they said, “Don’t you think we need more of your kind on the field? To patch up the boys that come back a little banged up?” What other choice was there? Turn back on queen and country? Seems like a terrible decision. I mean— And that’s . . . someone at the door. That for you? I don’t remember anyone asking for a visit . . . ._

If it so happened to be the world’s only consulting detective asking the question, a little more truth would be sewn into it.

 _Would you believe me if I said I was drunk when I filled out the forms? No, you wouldn’t—and with good reason, I suppose. My decision to enter the Army was a sober one. No, you can see it all mapped out in your head, can’t you? My hardwiring? My_ need _for action and violence? I guess it’s all a matter of the chicken or the egg; was I broken before the Army, or did the Army break me?_

Of course, it did not matter, because under the assault of the Afghan sun, John did not want to lay claim to his skin or his body or his heartbeat. He was Captain John Watson of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers; what other room was there for just _John_?

None.

With each erratic beat of his heart, John was able to reach a new corner of his own body, for it felt as if he could only exist within his blood; each surge in his gut screamed out in triumph, finally being able to work his circuitry without an assailing thought in his mind, for it was only under the threat of death that John truly draw breath.

John Watson lost ownership of his body when he signed up for the Army.

Next he would lose its function.

The limp was a short-lived matter, in retrospect, but it was difficult to forget how betrayed he felt by the world for which he’d given nearly everything; so much time abroad, to the point where John had to force himself to remember whether it had been years or months or decades, and all he had to show for it was in how _broken_ he was. His dreams were tainted, his skin painted a richer hue thanks to that sweltering sun that had seemed like a dying star, most days.

But his leg.

His leg was the loss that pierced his heart the fiercest—unless you were John, of course, and could hardly make such a metaphor when you could catalogue with medical precision how decidedly _unpierced_ your heart was. The cardiac membrane was intact; John Watson was safe.

Those two things did not correlate, for his heart was indeed healthy, but John Watson was worlds away from _safe._

He didn’t know what it would mean to want safety. Gun powder and coppery blood sat so much more beautifully on his tongue.

Regardless, apparently his body had been tricked into damaging itself by his cunning little mind. It was not enough that his memories were ones of bloodshed and gasping breath, but his leg was now unable to bear the full brunt of his weighted thoughts.

It was all so damn poetic, and John hated every minute of it.

He hated it most of all when a well dressed, sardonic bastard mapped out the timeline of his pain with perfect precision.

_You know the human body, and yet you’ve watched yours be taken from you and played with. That is the story of you. That is what I see; it is all I see._

But then the man gave his name, and it was Sherlock Holmes, and John wanted to know what it would be like to match his broken body with this man’s peculiar mind. That was the natural conclusion: find someone dented where he was perfect, fractured where he was whole, haunted where he was protected.

Then night came, and there was a candle and a table and a series of misfortunate questions, and a chase that warmed him from his skin to the marrow of his bones. Sherlock’s footfalls were dulled knocks along the damp walls of the London alleyway, reverberating with equal precision on the sides of John’s skull.

 _Wake up_ , they said. _You’ve been sleeping in this body a little too long, John._

He had, hadn’t he? For the first time in years, John Watson could escape from the barriers of his veins, the prison of his skeleton, the film of his skin-turned-armour. In listening to Sherlock’s panting breath, he could make his own lungs follow suit; in experiencing Sherlock’s excitement, John thought that he had a heart with a function more extensive than pumping blood.

Standing next Sherlock in the hall off 221B was an experience he’d never thought he would have—because he was panting, and it was the kind of ragged breathing that could convince you you were dying if you weren’t paying enough attention.

But it was the opposite.

It was the opposite, and it was _glorious_. Because every flare of pain in his trachea, every cramp in his diaphragm, was a reminder of what had once threatened to kill him, that never-ending action of his old life weighted heavily on his soul—and that his past could turn into something different, with Sherlock.

John thought, in a fit of oxygen-deprived lunacy, that somehow his heart had joined Sherlock’s in its rapid beating. He looked to this man whom he’d met not three days ago and wondered if it was possible for one person to draw on another’s air supply, to feel their adrenaline as acutely as their own—and relish in the completeness of it all.

Saving Sherlock was bittersweet, for the instincts were not his own; reaching for his gun, feeling the trigger against the pad of his finger like the poisonous lips of a forgotten lover, zeroing his vision down to the mark—they were engrained in a place John could not reach. Everything else, however, was John: waiting until Sherlock was invariably in danger so as not to draw blood where it was not necessary; wanting to save him because Sherlock was a startlingly fresh breath of air in London’s stifling haze.

John would claim that desire as his own in order to save this stolen summer breeze. He would grudgingly use the tools he had in his arsenal, because it was all he’d been given by the world’s cruelty.

A bullet pierced the sky, the ground, the world—as each bullet did. Always would.

Sherlock was safe.

It was time to go.

~

Sherlock would prove to be a tether for John throughout their friendship.

When the current of memory’s ocean threatened to pull him under, there was Sherlock’s crisp, cavalier voice. If John was truly lost, pushed against jagged rocks that knew where to press to bring up the oldest wounds, it was Sherlock’s softer voice—the one that he’d used when speaking his vow; when he apologized; when he was tired and his defences were no longer a priority.

That tether was cut.

And then it was tied again, some would argue stronger than before.

Then it was strained,

and pulled,

and stressed,

but it did not break. Not again.

Never again.

~

John’s body was once again wrested from his control, but this time, it was a burden he was willing to bear. After all, fatherhood was one of his greatest joys.

Nightfall had meant his body would go on autopilot; mobility meant sacrificing one or all of his limbs to bring his daughter with him; sleep meant—well. Sleep did not exist. John was still relearning sleep, now that Rosie was starting on a regular sleep schedule. But that was okay, because she was his daughter, and he loved her as a planet loved its brightest star, infinitely different and symbolic of everything hopeful.

It was easier to manage, that burden, when the other end of his tether was so near.

Sherlock threw himself onto his armchair horizontally. His ankle made an alarming noise as it banged against the metal beams—how had he even _managed that?—_ but it was of little importance.

“Has Lestrade sent you anything?”

“You know he texts you first. I take in the blog messages.”

Sherlock knocked his head back, the arch of his throat impressive in its sharp, unmarred surface. He had scars in several other places, John had learned, but his neck was untouched.

John rose from his seat.

“Are you _sure_ that nothing’s come up on the—”

He was just as surprised as Sherlock to find his hand resting below the detective’s jaw, fingers spanning to the soft spot under his ear and palm resting on the neck that had captured John’s attention so.

And there it was—that innate feeling that he could somehow hold Sherlock’s pulse in his hands, place it within his heart and listen to it as a calming melody before sleep came to take him. John knew that, if he asked, Sherlock would find a way to capture his heartbeat in a glass cube for John’s viewing pleasure, or trade the rest of his heart’s pumps for a few of John’s; he’d command a mountain to move in John’s name and force it to smile while doing so.

“You’ve already done so much for me . . .” How could John ask another thing of him? Telling him to go get the milk felt blasphemous sometimes.

“John?”

God, this Sherlock was one only John saw most times—this tender-hearted man whose brain outran him without a care for how his soul was coping.

“John . . . you’re crying.”

Ah, so that was the heat on his cheeks. Laughing wetly, John wiped away the offending tears. “So I am.”

“Has something happened?”

“No. No— _No_ , just . . .” One beat. Two beats. Three beats. Four. All divided in two—eight beats in their core. Eight thumps of Sherlock’s heart. And each for John.

It was almost easier when he hadn’t known the severity of those words.

“Why don’t you hate me?”

Sherlock’s brows leaped for his hairline before seriousness settled across his expression. “It would be as foolish as to hate my heart.”

“You _do._ ”

“Incorrect; not entirely unfounded, but . . . not entirely true, either.” John could only focus on the man’s words if he was staring at the distinct fleck of chocolate among the drained blue of Sherlock’s eyes, so he zeroed in on this mark that was gorgeous in its abnormality. “I do not hate my heart so much as I do not understand it. I sometimes do not know why it hurts, or in what manner it _should_ be hurting. You, to me, are equally open and unknowable.”

John’s lips were pinched. “I don’t want to be another mystery for you to solve.”

The tendons under John’s hand flexed. Lean, long muscles pulled and relaxed as Sherlock twisted to face him. Veins, muscle, bone; skin, scar tissue; Sherlock.

“You told me that I kept you right, once.”

“I did.”

Sherlock had made an off-handed comment about only one day of his life being so excruciating that he felt the need to retreat the scene of the crime early.

Then John had remembered Sherlock’s unannounced departure from his wedding.

And then he did his best not to remember how badly he’d wanted to stare at Sherlock, up on the dais, the lines of his body perfectly bent as his fingers danced over the neck of his violin, his arm pushing and extending to create a beautifully warbling song.

“Have I ever told you that it’s the same for me?”

Sherlock turned away, but did not move to dislodge John’s touch. “Don’t be cruel.”

John was quick to guide his face back, actions sure yet allowing for protest on Sherlock’s part. “I wouldn’t. Not to you. Not anymore.”

“John—”

“No, don’t lie to me—we’ve had our rows, Sherlock, and not the kind one has with a bastardly piece of machinery.”

Sherlock’s chortle was undignified. John loved the realness of it.

“Nothing real in my life has been pure good,” John continued. “Mary—at first, she _was_ all good, and that patched things up but—it didn’t _fix them_. Then it turned out to be lies on top of lies, and then I couldn’t tell if it was real at all, let alone good.” One beat, two beats; four thumps. For John. _For John._ “My time in the Army was good for—well. Me. Good for me. You know me. You know why it wasn’t all bad. I either learned to love it or learned that I’ve always loved it.”

Sherlock was not rushing him. If John messed this up now, he was going to launch himself out that window and hope every one of his ribs snapped. Controlling his body. He decided what broke.

And so maybe that meant he would risk his heart breaking, too.

“You, Sherlock, are what I can use to pull myself up out of treacherous waters. You make me at home in my own skin.” John saw his hand absentmindedly pet the short hairs at the side of Sherlock’s head—saw Sherlock lean into the caress like a sleep-heavy feline. If the sun had not been in slumber, if Sherlock was not baring himself for scrutiny that would not come, then perhaps John would have been more careful with the flowery nature of his words—but the moon was in the sky now, and Sherlock was making himself vulnerable, and so John would speak his heart's age-old cipher. “You gave me my body back. Made me feel real. I guess what I’m saying is that—is that if I keep you right, then that’s only because you were able to help me stand, first.”

Sherlock blurred at his edges when he surged forward, but the pressure of his lips against John’s was a distinctly soft one. John loosed a breath and Sherlock gasped—and that was them, in their essence, the perfect balance of everything and nothing, of rise and fall, of the moon and its dark side. They were neither of them only one, but a mix of all in different places.

Sherlock rumbled low in his chest, displeased. John pulled back, terrified, only to see Sherlock righting himself on the armchair and wrapping those spidery limbs around him—his legs bracketed John’s middle; his arms braced against John’s shoulders. Each point of contact was a blue-hot flame, cleaving its path into John’s skin and inscribing the story of a doctor and a detective.

Nimble fingers teased the collar of John’s shirt, but ventured no further. The hair’s on his neck stood up; his muscles shuddered; his jaw quivered as he focused on making sure Sherlock was comfortable and safe. The touch was small but it was significant in every way. It was perfect; it was Sherlock.

It was John and how he came alive under that perfect attention.

Yes, it would seem that John Watson never felt more real, more tangible in his skin, in his body, than when he was touching Sherlock Holmes.

**Author's Note:**

> come request a thing on [tumblr](https://i-just-like-books-man.tumblr.com)! I write for other fandoms too but MAN these two are having me whipped.


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